


Tedium

by raptormoon



Category: Moana (2016)
Genre: Angst, Boredom, Gen, Gift Fic, and that's on purpose, this is the exact opposite of exciting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-23
Updated: 2017-09-23
Packaged: 2019-01-01 05:24:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12149529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raptormoon/pseuds/raptormoon
Summary: A day, like every other day, stuck on his island....





	Tedium

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jadewolf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadewolf/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Future Legend](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10310894) by [jadewolf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadewolf/pseuds/jadewolf). 



> A little gift for JadeWolf! She writes the exciting, endearing, incredible stuff. TheFredricus and I are just filling in a little blank.
> 
> Takes place within JadeWolf's "Future Legend" story. It's amazing. Please go read.

* * *

By [TheFredricus](https://thefredricus.deviantart.com/)

 

 

In the calm morning under a softly-colored sky, his antennae trailing in the crisp blue water and searching for signs of activity nearby, Tamatoa sighed.

Nothing.

Well, not _nothing_ . A pod of whales breached several leagues away, but there wasn’t anything Tamatoa could do about it. He could maybe kill a whale, if it got close. Just the thought of whale meat made him hungry. But… they never got that close. They _couldn’t_ swim that close; the shallow lagoon waters made that impossible. So Tamatoa could only watch and yearn.

Despondent and hungry, he finally turned away and trudgingly made his way back through the lagoon waters to shore. So much for anything fun happening today. What to do with the time, then? This day, like so many days, would be filled with nothing except whatever he could create with the limited resources he had.

Once out of the water, Tamatoa stared numbly down the beach. Nothing new came to mind, all of his ideas long ago grown old.

Same as yesterday, then. There was comfort in routine, after all. He always went right so he could feel the warmth of the rising sun on his face as he started his perimeter walk.

He turned right, towards the freshwater pool, and took a single step.

No, he thought, suddenly. No, let’s not be comfortable today. Let’s mix it up a bit. Going left will be just as exciting as going right (not at all), but he would feel the sun on his shell instead of on his face. Plus, he felt in the mood to bask by his pool. Better to finish the walk with that.

So he turned left instead. Not that it really made a lick of difference in the end.

Tamatoa marched along the well-worn path encircling his island, past his molting sand, past the cliff, around the little pointed cape. Then, finally, he approached his little spring. He settled onto the ground next to it, took a long drink, and proceeded to stare at his reflection for a long time. Every once in a while he shifted, angling his shell to catch the sunlight and admiring the reflected glimmer in the low pool.

He had so much gold, now. Humans and their canoes were few and far-between, but more often than not there was some sort of treasure aboard when they did sail up. His shell was freshly bedecked and he was just starting to decorate his legs with simple golden plates. Every time he molted he found himself with more shell space to cover, so it wasn’t as though he ever had a need to stop collecting treasure. Besides, finding all of the shiny trinkets humans brought with them was as much fun as hunting down everyone unfortunate enough to make it to his shores.

But, aside from collecting and arranging it, the only other thing to do with his collection was admire it. So that’s what he did, lying beside his little pool. He watched the sunlight glint off of his metallic shell and cast golden beams of light back onto his face and the trees around him. He tilted his body to change the patterns of light, and thought maybe he should sing a song about it, someday. Not today, though.

Today he was too tired. Too hungry. So he dozed under the golden beams of reflected sunlight and gulped as much water as he could handle to fill his aching stomach. He lazed about, trying to ignore the slow crawl of time, but he knew it wouldn’t last long. Ultimately, he could ignore his hunger no longer. He stood slowly, watching as his reflected lightshow disappeared. He pointed himself inland and went hunting.

Tamatoa went to the fallen trees first. A fierce storm a couple of weeks ago (or was it three, now? More?) had knocked a few down. He had been safe in his sheltering cave, but the moment he had found the fallen fruit trees his heart had stuttered in fear. There was now that much less to eat on his island. The underripe fruits had already been eaten; now he harvested bark and leaves, scavenging any possible scrap of nutrition he could glean from the logs.

It was disgusting, but he ate it anyway. And he let a low wave of hate burn through him, directed at the person who had deliberately stranded him here.

He hoped tomorrow would see another canoe. But the thought of warm flesh to eat was too tantalizing, and made his insides ache again, so he pushed the thought away. Instead, he picked a few coconuts and some breadfruit, and carried them back to the lagoon’s sandy beach.

He laid down in the sand, eyestalks sagging and antenna limp. He held up a breadfruit, inspecting it carefully, but its details were much the same as every other breadfruit he had ever seen. He opened his mouth, placed it delicately on his tongue, and chewed mechanically. He repeated the process with everything he had picked, save one coconut, then swallowed the whole of them together. It was just enough of a bite that he could feel it pressing against his throat as it moved down.

That last coconut he tossed and caught for awhile. Sometimes he tossed it back and forth between his pincers, sometimes he used only one. He even waved his antenna about and threaded the coconut through with careful tosses. Finally, he tossed it straight up and caught it in his mouth, crunching down and letting the sweet milk inside wash over his tongue before he swallowed.

His eyes already pointing up, he checked the position of the sun. Surely he had managed to pass most of the day, surely-

The sun hadn’t even reached its apex, yet.

Frustration welled up within Tamatoa. He clenched his teeth, railing at the unfairness of it all. He used to sail with every freedom imaginable, going from one adventure to the next, never a dull moment in his life. Now, his life was nothing but an endless string of over-dull moments. He wanted to lash out. Wanted to pound his claws in the sand, curse the name of the one who had abandoned him here.

He did neither. It was pointless to do so. Nothing would change.

With nothing left to do, Tamatoa just stared blankly out to the horizon, desperately hoping for something to happen. Anything. Even hoping for that pod of whales to swim closer, just so he could watch their breaching, even if it made him hungry again.

Please, _something_ happen.

 

Nothing did.

 


End file.
